Interact Club members are collecting donations for their annual “Power to the Shower” event. The club sent out paper bags to each first hour class on March 26 to collect hygiene products like shampoo, conditioner, soap, toothpaste, toothbrushes, and floss for the school’s clothing closet.

Members of the Interact Club have been collecting donations from advisories to restock the clothing closet since 2016. This year, they decided to make the competition between first hour classes to see who would collect the most hygiene items. After the donations are collected on April 16, the winning class will receive ice cream treats.

In past years, the club has collected between 300 and 400 items during this event. As president of the club, senior Willem McClellan hopes they’ll raise even more this year. He enjoys setting up this event because it provides hygiene items for those who need it at the place they’ll already be seven hours a day, five days a week.

“It’s a really good thing because there are students in the school who don’t have access to these things at home,” McClellan said.

About three years ago, the clothing closet was low on products and needed to be refilled. The Interact club decided to create an event to fix the problem. Interact advisor Angela Johnson thought they should show some support for their home, the school, so the club started raising awareness with the “Power to the Shower” event.

“Not as many people are familiar with (the clothing closet) needing things other than clothes,” Johnson said.

Many teachers and students have brought in numerous hygiene items to donate through this event. This year, the “Power to the Shower” competition provoked some thought in freshman Braedyn Schramm, who brought in almost 70 hygiene products to donate.

“I just wanted everyone to be able to be clean because no one deserves to not be clean,” Schramm said.

To raise donations for both his class and the clothing closet, Schramm made trips to Walmart and the dollar store to buy as many products as he could. He was happy to help the students who can’t afford to buy these products themselves.

“People should not be unclean because they can’t buy stuff,” Schramm said.

Through this event, the Interact Club has motivated both teachers and students to help those in the school who need hygiene products. McClellan hopes that this year’s event will raise more donations than past years and continue to help any students in the school who need it.